


A Broken Thing Might Seek Repair

by An_Ominous_Nya



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Forms of Magic, Death-Lite Reincarnation, F/M, Gen, M/M, Male Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), New Old Friends, Post-Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Soul Division, Spoilers, The spoilers start in the first paragraph so take care.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26005048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Ominous_Nya/pseuds/An_Ominous_Nya
Summary: Ryne and the Warrior of Light investigate the Crystarium's newest arrivals, a pair of mystel sporting miqo'te names, on the suspicion that they might be Ascian. Their suspicions turn out to be correct, but not in a way they could have ever expected.The twins, M'elia and M'ezran, claim to be the shards of a soul the Warrior thought gone, and their knowledge of recent events and ancient concepts makes it hard for him to doubt.The Warrior must decide what to do with them. Can he justify returning them to the Source, given their past life's deeds?Does he even have a right to judge M'elia and M'ezran for crimes committed by a man who was neither?Morals and duty clash with desire as the Warrior tries to solve a pair of new old problems.
Relationships: Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 12





	1. Is it Too Late to Pick a Different Prefix?

V'rikshi Tia, Warrior of Darkness or Light, depending on who and where you were asking, tipped back the last of his tea as Ryne meandered toward the finale of her update on Norvrandt's goings on. Not much had happened since the Scions' departure, for which the overworked miqo'te was quietly grateful. He hadn't realized how tired his clash with Elidibus had left him until his friends—G'raha included—were safe in their bodies on the Source and he was free, at last, to sit still for a few undisturbed seconds—at which point he fell asleep almost immediately, head slumping straight onto the table beside the cup of tea Tataru had offered only moments before. He woke in one of the infirmary beds twelve hours later. Tataru laughed as she detailed all the ways the Scions had tried to rouse him. 

"You simply would not be woken," she said. "Not even when Urianger hefted you over his shoulder and carried you in here like a sack of grain."

Krile, who had only recently woken up from her own well-deserved nap, diagnosed him with exhaustion and bade him stay in the Rising Stones until he'd recovered. 

"At least here we can be sure you won't be nodding off in the midst of combat or sleeping through your own assassination."

V'rikshi had laughed, accepted Tataru's offering of an egg and toast breakfast, and fell back asleep the moment she'd bustled his empty plate away. 

It was five days before his sleeping schedule had returned to normal, and a few days more before Krile would hear of him taking a trip back to Norvrandt. 

"I just want to check in on them," he'd said during his first escape attempt.

Krile stood in front of the door with her hands firmly on her hips and her hood swept back so that she could deliver the full force of her glare at her recalcitrant patient. "It's been six days, V'rikshi."

"Exactly!"

Despite his protestations, the lalafell would not be swayed that day. She refused him twice more, but on his fourth attempt she sighed and said, "Fine, fine. I can see your worries won't be put to rest without tangible evidence of peace on the First. Nor will some of your friends'."

At the questioning tilt of his head, she said, "They talk around it, but the others have been on edge all week. I think it will do you all some good to have confirmation that the First is capable of carrying on without you."

V'rikshi had left the Rising Stones later that day. The other Scions' relief had been plain in their goodbyes, and though none made any verbal requests for his visit, he determined to do a quick sweep of their friends and former obligations to gather whatever information he might need to set their silent fears to rest. 

Ryne was his first stop, and their discussion thus far had been blessedly benign. The First had been so reduced in size and population by the flood of light and its aftershocks that there wasn't much chance of large scale tragedy without the Crystarium catching wind of it, and Ryne had naught to report but the progress of the world's ongoing reconstruction and some blushing whispers on the slow evolution of her relationship with Gaia. 

"Though," she said as she brushed away a few crumbs of coffee biscuit, "there's something Lyna mentioned that I wanted to look into whenever you returned. Would you have time to meet a couple of guests who've recently come to the Crystarium?" 

V'rikshi's tawny ears pricked forward. "What sort of guests?" 

"Lyna said she'd escorted a pair of 'rather eccentric' mystel to the city after they were attacked along the road through Lakeland. They had apparently managed to dispatch the beast without problem, but the effort had left one of the pair too faint to travel without assistance. That in itself probably wouldn't be unusual enough to report, but Lyna said her conversation with them had been 'strange in a way she felt ill equipped to handle.'"

V'rikshi's tail was twitching now. "What was strange about it?"

"Well, when she asked them their names, what they gave weren't normal mystel names. They sounded—and were apparently spelled—more like your name, or G'raha's. They called themselves M'elia and M'ezran. One of the guards commented that they were odd names for a mystel, and the woman, M'elia, said that she thought 'the cats' always had 'unnecessary punctuation' in their names. Lyna told me the way the woman said 'the cats' made it sound like she was talking about an entirely different species than herself. After that, the woman gave only vague answers to identifying questions, and the man wasn't lucid enough to contribute much of sense." Ryne glanced over her shoulder, then leaned in to deliver the rest at a whisper. "From what she said, I thought it possible they might be Ascians. I've had her keep an eye on them, but I was reluctant to approach them outright without you. Plus they really haven't done anything to warrant accusation, yet. The man has been recovering from their mishap, and the woman has so far spent most of her time at the Cabinet." 

"Any idea what she's been reading?" V'rikshi asked.

Ryne shook her head. "She's been sticking to nonfiction, but on too many subjects to draw real conclusions from." 

V'rikshi leaned back in his chair. The Ascian theory did have merit, though if Ryne's description of their behavior was accurate, they were being quite unsubtle about it. 

Perhaps that was to be expected. Elidibus had been the last of the unsundered Ascians. Those few who remained were uplifted mortals, powerful in their own right but vastly less so than his two most recent foes. 

"Yes, I think I would like to meet them," he said. 

\--

Ryne requested Lyna stand watch outside the Pendants, where the suspicious duo had been staying since their arrival in the Crystarium, while she and V'rikshi conducted their visit. "Just in case things go badly," V'rikshi said when Lyna asked why. 

"What should I expect if they do?" Lyna asked, brow furrowed.

"Nothing worse than the city's dealt with before, but enough to warrant caution nonetheless," V'rikshi said.

Lyna nodded, and directed several other guards to station themselves within sight of the Pendants, but not so closely together as to draw the curiosity of idle citizens. 

The concierge pointed Ryne and V'rikshi to a room not far from the one that had been set aside for the Warrior's use when he'd first been pulled to the Crystarium's doorstep by G'raha's desperate summons. V'rikshi hesitated when they reached the door, not because he was nervous, but because he could hear two voices, muffled by the wood but still mostly intelligible to his sensitive miqo'te ears. He held up a palm when Ryne made for the door and placed a finger on his lips. She stopped, nodded, and took a quiet step back. V'rikshi angled closer to the door, ears swiveling to best catch the words the room's occupants traded.

"—not believe it's been five days and you're still moaning about it," said an airy voice V'rikshi assumed must belong to the woman. 

"I'm not doing it again. You can be the battery from now on." The man's voice was deeper, but not exceedingly so. 

"No. I'm a better conduit. If I'd let you take charge, we'd be scraps of meat wedged between that thing's criminally excessive teeth."

"I'm skeptical of the way you're using the word 'better.' One might argue that debilitating half of your party for multiple days to cast a single spell is not, in fact, 'better' than less explosive alternatives."

"One may also argue that said alternatives are worth exactly nothing when subtlety takes significantly more concentration than is afforded in most life or death situations."

"Will you at least agree to let me handle anything that comes up while in populated areas? I'm fairly certain leaving a bloody crater in the middle of the Crystarium would do very little to endear ourselves to the citizens."

"Is that a thing we're doing? Endearing ourselves?"

"We are as long as it lets us avoid sleeping in the dirt."

"Hm. As much as I hate ceding ground, you have a point."

A snort. "Ceding ground."

"What?"

"Ceding ground. About sleeping in the dirt."

The silence that followed was swiftly broken by a bark of frustrated laughter from the woman.

"How have I avoided killing you this long?" she said. 

"Masterful self control and an addiction to magic too powerful to summon on your own."

"Look at that. You've managed to be right for once."

After this, the pair went quiet, and all V'rikshi could hear was the gentle scrape of a turning page. 

V'rikshi had no idea what to make of what he'd just overheard. None of it had clearly screamed "Ascian," but the talk of batteries and conduits was beyond his ken. It was at least promising that the man wanted to avoid making a scene, even if the woman was somewhat more blasé about it. Feeling relatively safe to proceed, V’rikshi straightened himself, nodded to Ryne, and delivered a trio of solid knocks to the door. 

The woman's voice called "Just a second," and after the gentle thump of what V'rikshi guessed was her book against a table and the squeak of a chair suddenly freed from weight, the soft padding of unshod feet approached the door. 

The door swung open, and the miqo’te woman it revealed blinked curiously up at V'rikshi. Behind her, the man was draped over a couch with his face buried in a pillow. He didn't bother looking up at his guests, but waved vaguely in their direction.

V'rikshi had guessed from their shared tribal prefix that the pair might be siblings. Now that he saw them, he was sure of it. In coloration they were identical—pale skin, white hair, and though he couldn't see the man's eyes, he guessed they'd share the woman's moonlight yellow. Their hair was cut to a similar length—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that their hair had grown to a similar length, judging by the uneven ends crying out for an aesthetician’s expert skills. Their tails were leonine. The woman’s flicked back and forth as she surveyed her guests. The man’s hung limply over the side of the couch, its tuft occasionally brushing along the floor. 

When V’rikshi opened his mouth to say hello, the woman's thin ears pressed against her skull. Her eyes widened. "You." 

It was an accusation. It was an exhalation, full of relief. It was heavy with recognition, though V'rikshi was sure he'd never seen this woman in his life.

"Me?" V'rikshi asked, unsure how else to meet such unexpected vehemence. 

This seemed to disarm her a bit. Her ears lifted into neutrality, and her alert expression melted into a lazy, tired smirk. "M'ezran, you may want to pull yourself out of your divot. The Warrior of Darkness himself has come to visit."

The man lifted his face from the pillow. His eyes were indeed the same shade as M'elia's, and like hers, they widened when they saw the man standing at their door. Then, all energy seemed to leave him at once, and he collapsed back onto his pillow.

"Ask him if he knows what the M stands for," he said into the fabric.

"M'ezran, we have slightly more important things to deal with."

"I want an answer before you scare him away."

V'rikshi glanced between the two. "Sorry? Did he say 'the M'?"

M'elia sighed. "The M in our names. M'elia and M'ezran, if you didn't know before you knocked. We can't remember what the logic behind miqo'te nomenclature is. He keeps saying it has something to do with animals."

Ryne and V’rikshi shared a bemused look. Gently, Ryne said, “You know they aren’t called miqo’te here, right?”

“Yes, of course I know. Catfolk are mystel here. I looked it up after I realized I’d gotten it wrong when making up our pseudonyms.” 

V’rikshi said, “You’re being quite forthcoming for someone who’s felt the need to use a pseudonym.” 

M’elia flicked a hand at him dismissively. “Our need for pseudonyms stems from unique circumstances. We’ve not been engaged in some grand deception.” She graced her visitors with a smile that mingled sweet and sour in equal doses. “Just tell me what the M is for so we can move on to matters of actual consequence.”

V’rikshi decided to play along. “The prefix indicates what tribe you belong to,” he said. He inclined his head toward M’ezran. “He was somewhat right. Every tribe is traditionally tied to a certain species of animal. I’m of the V tribe, represented by the vulture. The M tribe is linked to the marmot.”

M’elia’s ears lowered, and M’ezran’s head lifted languidly away from his pillow. The edges of his crooked smile twitched as he said, “Did you say marmot?” 

V’rikshi nodded. 

“Did you hear that, M’elia? You’ve inducted us into the mighty _marmot_ tribe.” 

When M’elia didn’t reply, he rolled himself off of the bed and stalked up to her. His smile broke into a grimace when he took his first, slightly shaky step, but by the time he’d reached her side it was back in full force. He lowered himself the few ilms it took to whisper directly into her ear. 

“Marmots, M’elia. We’re marmots now.” 

For a moment, it looked like M’elia might turn and swipe his eyes out. Her fingers clenched, and her body tensed with impending violence. But the urge passed out of her in a long, aggrieved exhalation. Her shoulders slumped as M’ezran’s began to shake with barely controlled laughter. “This is your fault, you know,” she said to V’rikshi. “Because of you, I am now a marmot.”

“I can promise you I had no hand in the choices of some other tribe’s long dead ancestors,” V’rikshi said.

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. But you don’t know. How could you know? You’d have no reason.” She stepped aside. “Just. Come in. Make yourselves comfortable. We’ve got more to talk about than you think we do, and it might be a minute or ten before he shuts up.”

M’ezran could only restate “ _Marmot_ ” as though it were the funniest joke he’d ever heard.


	2. A Prelude

Some days after the Warrior of Darkness' triumph over Hades, the wandering specter of Hythlodaeus encountered a curiosity. By appearance alone, he might have called it a ghost. It was, in form, even more ephemeral than the citizens of the phantom Amaurot. Though arranged in the most common sapient configuration—bipedal, four limbed—its shape lacked definition, more like an artist's mannequin than an autonomous being. 

At first he took it for an error in Amaurot's construction. Though Hades' magic was rarely flawed, he had constructed the city on a tighter timeline than such feats normally required. Likely it was an Amaurotine prop intended for his friend’s tragedy but abandoned when the audience arrived too early. 

It stood outside the Capitol, staring at doors that towered over even fully grown Amaurotines. Hythlodaeus approached with interest. There was a chance its programming was more complete than its body, and he liked to ponder the logic behind the people, conversations, and interactions Hades had reproduced in his Amaurot.

When he drew close, the thing startled. It whipped around to face him, moving much more quickly than any shade he'd come across thus far. It had no eyes, but nonetheless it studied him, and when it tilted its head in obvious question, Hythlodaeus knew he'd fundamentally misinterpreted its nature. This was no projection propelled by ancient memory. There was free will in its motion, something no modern Amaurotine—perhaps not even Hythlodaeus himself, though he faked it well enough—could boast. 

"Well, well," Hythlodaeus said. "Who might you be?"

It considered a moment, and then its edges blurred. It became an indistinct mass, and began to grow. When it had reached his height, it started to reform, but before its features had returned to even their previous mannequin-adjacent definition, its progress faltered, and its form collapsed.

For a moment, it remained nebulous, and Hythlodaeus feared it might dissipate from the stress of its failed transformation. Before his worries mounted high, however, it began to pull itself together, though this time at a size much smaller than its previous attempt.

When it had finished, what looked back at him was a miniature clone of himself. It tilted its head in question again, as if asking for his approval. 

Hythlodaeus said, "Quite a skillful recreation, my friend, but I don't think it's what you're looking for."

It examined itself, stretching out its arms, then tugging at its thick, form-concealing robe. Finally, it removed its mask. It peered closely into the empty eyes and ran its fingers along the edges. When it had taken the item's full measure, it froze for a second, gripping the mask hard between its fingers. Hythlodaeus realized, by the subtle shaking of its fingers, that it was trying to exert some power over the object.

The mask did not respond to whatever Hythlodaeus' new friend had been attempting. In obvious frustration, the being snapped the mask in two. 

The being tossed the halves away, then turned its back to Hythlodaeus. The Ancient was surprised to see that the halves lingered after their creator had discarded them, and while his new friend was preoccupied with whatever had turned it away (Hythlodaeus suspected pouting, but didn't want to make assumptions), he knelt down to inspect it. 

Up close, Hythlodaeus saw that his new friend's efforts hadn't been completely in vain. The mask's color had shifted from its starting white into the faintest whisper of pink. He wondered if a more distinct pink had been the goal, or if it had just been the first stumbling step toward its brother, red.

A shadow fell over the mask, and Hythlodaeus looked up to see that his friend had returned from the suspected pout. It stood before him, arms crossed defiantly, hood swept back, and glared at him with a face that was almost assuredly wrong.

The being had made itself a replica of the man this Amaurot had been built for. Hazel irises cut by thin, vertical pupils blazed at him from a narrow, bronze face. The angled stripes of brown beneath his eyes were distorted slightly by the pull of his tooth-bearing ferocity. The sleek ears, furred the same orange-brown as his messily tied hair, lay flat against his head. 

He spread his arms in a gesture that demanded Hythlodaeus' judgment. 

The Ancient said, "Unless something strange and unexpected has happened since last I saw that face, I think it's still not quite what you're looking for. It belongs to a friend of mine, just as your previous try belonged to me. Have you anything that you might rightly call your own?" 

For a second, it seemed the answer might be yes. The being frayed at the edges, and change began to ripple through. But the metamorphosis stopped before it could proceed further than blurring away the stolen features. The being hooked the hood back over its head, then stared for a moment at the creaseless anonymity of its unshaped hands. Without looking up at Hythlodaeus, it shook its head. 

Hythlodaeus placed a gentle hand on the bowed head. "Take heart, my friend, for here you have an opportunity. Instead of recreating, why not just create? Make something you like. Something that you'd want the world to see. And don't rush through the making. This is your self, we're talking about. It deserves consideration."

He gave the being's head a pat. It reached up to shove his hand away before another could fall, but there was no malice in it. 

No malice. But Hythlodaeus was struck with a sudden familiarity. A theory sparked in him, and he studied his friend with newly kindled suspicion. 

Not wanting to muddy the artist's fresh canvas, he kept it to himself.


	3. What I Say in Unison

Neither V'rikshi nor Ryne were in any way prepared for the claim M'elia would shortly make. They'd been directed to the couch, where M'ezran had indeed left a bit of a divot during his recovery. V'rikshi poised on the edge, unsure what sort of reaction he might need for whatever the M twins had to say. Ryne seemed to settle in, scooting back to smile at the twins through the gap between V'rikshi and the couch's upright cushions, but V'rikshi knew her apparent calm would be no hindrance if a fight broke out. M'elia pulled out a pair of chairs from a table at the other side of the room. She sat on the first, but M'ezran ignored the one she offered him and lowered himself to the floor, where he stretched onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, still occasionally chuckling about marmots. 

When all had arranged themselves, M'elia began. "As I'm sure our lack of prior knowledge about both miqo'te and the vocabulary of the First has made abundantly clear, M'ezran and I are neither normal mystel, nor even from this world."

"In a sense, we are," M'ezran said from the floor. "Physically, at least. Our bodies were born here."

M'elia sighed. "Yes, fine, I stand corrected. These bodies originated here. Our soul did not."

"Soul?" Ryne asked. "Not 'souls'?"

"Yes, singular soul. You see, we are pieces of the same soul. Split, like everyone else, but not into fourteen spread across the shards. He is half. I am half. Both of us with roughly the same aetheric density of a seven times rejoined soul from the Source." 

"And, of course, you're going to explain how you know about any of this in the first place," V'rikshi said. 

M'elia said, "Of course. In fact, I can do that in as few as three words. We are Hades."

"Hades is dead." It came out too quick, too defensive, at a rasp that scraped V'rikshi's throat as raw as the chimera of flayed emotions his final confrontation with the unsundered Ascian had birthed. V'rikshi knew Hades was dead. He'd seen to it himself, using the same tried and tested method as had destroyed Nabriales and Igeyohrm. Apply enough aether to an Ascian soul trapped within white auracite, and you kill the Ascian, finally and utterly, with no hope of revival. It had worked on Nabriales. It had worked on Igeyohrm. It must have worked on Emet-Selch. 

Of course, Nabriales and Igeyohrm had not been unsundered. 

Neither of them had appeared to him, after their death, with a last request.

M'elia smiled, and V'rikshi's certainty, already beginning to splinter, cracked straight through. The lopsided quirk of her lips was too familiar, even accounting for their new size and shape. "Hades is only as dead as any sundered soul. Perhaps a little less so, since the memories returned by the star showers were much clearer for us than for those who broke so long ago."

"Not totally clear," M'ezran said. "There are significant holes, and a fog that thickens the further back we try to go."

"Yes. We are very distressed about this," M'elia said. Though the current beneath her words was placid, V'rikshi didn't doubt them. He remembered Hades telling him that an unsundered heart could be broken in a tone that mixed jest with petulance, then proving his claim to hold neither in what V'rikshi had thought was their finale. 

Ryne said, "If you're telling the truth, how would such a thing happen? Why would you be split into two adults?"

"What else would we have split into?" M'ezran said, lifting his head to smirk at the girl. "Did you think the original sundering resulted in a universe of infants? The new status quo would have ended before it even had a chance to define itself."

"Oh. I suppose that makes more sense," Ryne said. 

"That doesn't explain how," V'rikshi said.

M'elia shrugged. "That, we don't know. Our new memory begins at waking on the streets of Amaurot. The old ends with our not-quite-death. We weren't privy to whatever process dragged us from one to the other."

"How did you get back to the surface from Amaurot?" Ryne asked. She had scooted forward with interest. The slight skepticism in her eyes had fled in favor of a curious shine.

"Our escape was made possible by the only worthwhile discovery that's come from this unfortunate situation," M'elia says. "It turns out that two pieces of the same soul can, by combining their efforts, cast magic far more powerful than what would be possible for a single sliver." 

M'ezran rolled onto his side, and propped his head up on one hand. He said, "Like many great discoveries, it was a total accident. M'elia was pitching a fit—"

"A fully understandable fit, considering the circumstances," M'elia interjected. "We had been eating seaweed and unseasoned fish for a week. I was at my limit."

"—and I took her by the shoulder to try and calm her down. When I did, it felt like a hole had suddenly opened within me, and something vital was draining out. We know now, as a result of not at all horrible and unjustly imbalanced experimentation, that M'elia was tapping into my aether." 

"We can do it unconsciously, giving and taking as needed for any purpose that might require more than we possess separately," M'elia said. "My desire to escape manifested as a teleportation spell that carried us much further than any sundered soul should be able to manage."

"Too far," M'ezran sighed. "We landed in the jungle, near the village of rabbit women, who were less than welcoming without the Warrior of Darkness to vouch for us. Needless to say, our culinary situation did not immediately improve."

"Escaping a hostile jungle with neither map nor allies proved difficult," M'elia continued. "We only escaped with Elidibus' help. 

"Not his knowing help, mind," M'ezran cut in. "Elidibus never knew we still lived—in as much as this can be called living, at least."

M'elia said, "It was the starshower. What awakened the Echo in others stirred memory in us."

"Muddled memories."

"Just enough to restore a sense of self."

"More than enough to facilitate our escape."

Something in M'ezran and M'elia had shifted in those last few sentences. They, who had seemed in opposition from the start of V'rikshi and Ryne's visit, were suddenly in sync. Identical smiles too strained to match the intensity of their glare. Ears pricked at the same angle. Their chests rose and fell at a matched pace. 

In unison they said, "I knew I had to find you."

The volume of their joined voices seemed to shock them out of their bitter harmony. M'ezran coughed and lowered himself to lay flat against the floor again, eyes averted from M'elia and his guests both. M'elia's ears pressed flat to her head, and she turned toward the window. "We knew you were our best chance at escaping the First. As fun as our diversion on this reflection has been, we'd quite like to be back in a world where we won't be stumped by simple subjects like what the sapient species call themselves."

M'elia's eyes slid back to V'rikshi's. "You found a way to send your companions back, did you not? We ask only that you do the same for us. After that, if you'd like us gone, we'll be only too happy to disappear. If you do not trust us to be let loose on the Source, then you can feel free to keep tabs on our movements. We really don't care either way."

"And what if we didn't trust you to move freely at all?" V'rikshi asked.

M'elia shrugged. "Then keep us. I'm sure we could find a way to make our captivity interesting for everyone." V'rikshi wasn't sure whether to call those words a promise or a threat. Perhaps both: a threat that promised mischief. A promise she threatened to keep.

Ryne looked to V'rikshi. "I think this has to be your choice," she said. "It's not my world."

V'rikshi looked at the twins. M'elia hunched over in her seat, watching him expectantly. M'ezran hadn't turned his eyes from the ceiling, but his feline ears were pricked to catch V'rikshi's answer.

It was a familiar dilemma for a man whose actions so often decided fates far beyond his own. What was the choice that was best for everyone? 

Could he really justify bringing Emet-Selch back to a world he'd ravaged more than once? Could he possibly leave him here, where V'rikshi would not always be available to quash whatever problems he might make?

But M'elia and M'ezran weren't quite Emet-Selch, were they? Was it fair of him to judge them for the sins of a previous incarnation? If he held them to that standard, was he not making the same mistake as the Ascians? Had V'rikshi not fought for the right of all to be treated as more than just the broken parts of ancient souls?

Would it even be possible? 

"I…"

There was an answer in him, but V'rikshi couldn't speak it. It was too personal. The Warrior of Light couldn't afford to be too personal. 

"I can't promise anything," he said, settling for something that might give him more time. 

"Well," M'elia said. This time, her smile seemed to hold some actual amusement. "That's better than a no, I suppose."


	4. Matters of Taste

Ryne saw V'rikshi off with a chorus of assurances that the First could survive a few days of whatever mischief the M twins might cook up while he returned to the Source to consult with the Scions. 

"I doubt they'll make trouble. They want your help, after all. I'm sure they understand you'll be more likely to give it if they behave," she said. 

"You have my permission to go ahead and off them if they do otherwise," V'rikshi said, folding his arms across his chest. "They should stay dead this time, at least."

"You don't mean that," Ryne said. Her smile was understanding in a way that made V'rikshi feel uncomfortable. He didn't like that she was right. 

His tail thrashed with all of the agitation he was trying to keep from his face. "Just do whatever you need to keep safe," he said. "I won't blame you for it, whatever it is."

"Don't worry," she said. She took him by the arm and walked him toward the portal. "I'll keep everyone safe."

\--

Though she asked Lyna to keep a lookout for any odd activity from or against M'elia and M'ezran, Ryne reasoned her promise might be best kept with a bit of effort on her own part. So it was she found herself, two days later, at the twins' rented doorstep with an invitation to lunch.

M'ezran was alone. His recovery appeared to be going well—he kept upright as they spoke, in any case—and he seemed strangely pleased to see her. Ryne wondered if he might get lonely when M'elia made her frequent pilgrimages to the Cabinet.

She wondered if they might feel alone together.

"Will you be paying?" M'ezran asked. "We find ourselves tragically low on funds. We've just enough to pay for our room until I'm ready to make more."

"Can M'elia not make any herself?" Ryne asked.

With an aggrieved sigh, M'ezran said, "Unfortunately, making coins that'll fool the vendors requires a bit of joint power, as well as a precision that her brute spells lack." 

"You meant you make money?" Ryne said in a tone that linked distress with curiosity. What he'd just admitted had to be somewhat unlawful, and the last thing she wanted was for Lyna to toss the pair out of the city for petty crimes. 

But she also kind of wanted to see the two work such an interesting spell.

The chuckle that accompanied M'ezran's reply told her he'd been hoping for such a response. "Of course. We certainly aren't going to waste what little time these lives possess in mundane employment." He emphasized the last word with a sneer that made his opinion of the concept exceedingly clear.

Ryne decided she'd let the counterfeiting slide until she had Vrikshi's opinion on the matter. Maybe one of the Scions had the financial acumen to judge what should be done about their unabashed abuse of the economy. "No, I suppose you wouldn't," Ryne said. "And I suppose I'll pay for you this time, if it'll convince you to come."

"Wonderful," M'ezran said. "That should be enough to convince M'elia, but if it's not, I'm sure I can whine her into submission."

"All right. Shall we meet tomorrow at lunch, then?" Ryne said. "I'll come to the inn, and we can decide where to go together."

M'ezran didn't respond immediately. His yellow eyes were searching, roaming her friendly smile like he expected to find something hidden within.

What he might have found, Ryne herself wasn't sure, but after a few silent seconds, he said, "It's a date," and closed the door before the girl could say goodbye.

\--

M'elia chose a small location she'd passed by on her trips to the Cabinet of Curiosity.

"The smell has been driving me absolutely mad," she said as they walked, she and Ryne side-by-side, M'ezran working to keep up with them just behind. "I've considered arson just to save myself the longing."

To the nervous look Ryne shot her, M'elia said, "I am joking, of course. I have great respect for those who work in the arts, and cooking is very much an artform."

Ryne nodded and said, "I'd like to learn someday. Maybe now that things are calmer." 

"It has never been a talent of mine," M'elia said. "I used to skip meals just because the end result was never worth the effort. He'd scold me terribly." She laughed, a single, light "hah" that ended with a gentle shake of her head. 

"He?" Ryne asked. 

"Ah." M'elia looked away, feline ears falling slightly. "An old friend. A meddler, too concerned with the well-being of others for his own good."

Ryne sensed she'd touched on a sensitive topic. "Sorry. I shouldn't have pried."

"Of course you should have," M'ezran said, taking several breathy steps forward to match their pace. "Questioning vagueries is just good sense. Too many people let them pass without comment for the sake of etiquette and suffer for it later."

He fell a few steps behind again. "In any case," he said between slightly ragged breaths. "Refusing to speak of him, when our memories are now in danger of being lost forever—"

"When some already have been," M'elia interjected.

"—would be very…" M'ezran continued.

"Foolish," the two of them finished together. 

Despite this assertion, the next few minutes of their trek passed in silence. M'ezran was too out of breath to continue, and M'elia seemed lost to some private musing.

Ryne was the first to speak up. "Why don't you write them down?"

M'elia stirred from her thoughts. "What?"

"Write down your memories. You could keep a journal. Or if you'd like others to see, I'm sure a book about your life would be quite interesting! I'd love to read it. I'm sure V'rikshi would, too, and I doubt you could keep Urianger and Y'shtola away from such a piece of history." 

"Let's see… Y'shtola is the other cat, if I remember correctly. Which of the bookish elezen is Urianger, the small one, or the one who seems to have learned speech from tomes that were already ancient a couple of centuries ago?"

Ryne giggled. "The second."

"Yes, well, as long as he isn't editing, the idea isn't completely without merit," M'elia said. "One of us does find himself with an abundance of time to fill, lately. Strange, given that we have so little of it remaining unless we find a way to fix this."

"So you do intend to try and fix it," Ryne said. She hadn't doubted, nor was she surprised that M'elia might choose to declare their intent openly. Emet-Selch had done the same, after all. 

M'elia shrugged. The glance she shot Ryne was electric with challenge. "Of course. I've been trying to fix everyone else for so long. Why not myself?" 

Before Ryne could respond, M'elia pointed ahead. "That's the place."

Ryne had expected something extravagant from a former emperor, but M'elia's chosen location was just a stall, and a small one, at that. A burly galdjent woman leaned on the counter that divided customers from employees, talking to the lone drahn diner who occupied the fourth of five stools lined up along the counter's length. Behind her, a mystel woman, hair and ears tied up in a thin scarf, worked the ingredients of what must have been the drahn's order with mesmerizing dexterity. 

"I do love it when you can see the chef at work," M'ezran said, regaining his breath now that they'd slowed to approach. "Anyone who can handle a knife like that woman is an expert."

"Hopefully an expert in the culinary arts and not some other knife-centric skillset," M'elia said.

As they approached the stall, the smell that had so enticed M'elia hit Ryne in a savory wave that set the girl's stomach rumbling. The galdjent woman looked up when they'd drawn close enough to clearly be potential customers. "Welcome," she said, her boisterous voice loud even over the sizzle of the burners behind her.

"Hello," Ryne said pleasantly, perching on the leftmost stool. M'ezran sank onto the stool to her right in obvious relief, and M'elia drawled a polite "Afternoon" before hopping onto the seat between her twin and the drahn and turning her full attention to the menu chalked on a strip of slate hanging over the mystel's workstation. 

"Let me know if you've any questions," the proprietress said. 

"I do," M'ezran said, raising a hand to just above his shoulder. "If you had to choose one dish to best display your chef's prowess, which would it be?"

The galdjent looked over her shoulder to the mystel. "You hear that, love?"

The chef nodded. She'd finished the other customer's dish and was plating it with a smooth, practiced ease. "Huntress' Delight," she said, sparing naught but a second to consider the question. "Made with meat I've procured myself."

"Perfect," M'ezran said. "I'll take that."

"Me as well," M'elia said. "It's been quite a while since I've had wild meat hunted by someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"Two Huntress' Delights," the galdjent woman confirmed. She smiled at Ryne. "And you, lass? Take your time if you need it."

"I think I'd like the Amh Araeng Bowl, please," Ryne said.

"Like a little fire, do you?" the galdjent said with an approving nod. 

"Two Delights, one Amh Araeng," the mystel said without looking away from her station. "Got it."

Orders taken, the proprietress graced the trio with another smile and returned to her conversation with the drahn, who was now ripping into a strip of some darker meat with gusto. 

"Another thing you love to see at any eatery," M'ezran said, just loud enough for his companions. "Genuine enthusiasm from the other diners."

"Much better than the performative consumption of the folk who crowded the final half of our last lifetime," M'elia scoffed. To Ryne she said, "If you ever end up ruling anything, I recommend faking an assassination as soon as possible. Seeing a reign through to its natural end is nothing but tedium."

"I'm certain that'll never be an issue," Ryne said.

"I wouldn't count it out this early in the new era," M'ezran said. "With the Crystal Exarch gone and the Warrior of Darkness transient, if these people decide they miss being led, you will likely be a popular candidate."

"Why me?" Ryne asked 

"You are the remaining hero of those who dispelled the darkness and united Norvrandt," M'ezran said. "That you are an underqualified child—no offense, just truth—will be trumped by the enormity of your deeds."

The thought twisted her stomach. Ryne said, "I wouldn't accept."

"So you say now, in a time of peace," M'ezran said. "Should trouble arise, and all eyes turn to you, would you flee? Say 'no, thank you' to their pleas for salvation?"

"I—"

"Of course you wouldn't. I don't know you well, but I've known people like you. I've seen where good deeds end."

Ryne looked away to hide her pout. "Do you enjoy making every conversation as trying as possible for the other party?"

She regretted the petulance even before the question had finished. She'd proposed this lunch knowing exactly what sort of person the twins had been. She thought she'd been prepared for their barbs, that her natural tranquility might be the perfect tool to disarm them, yet here she was, piqued before they'd even gotten their food.

M'ezran clicked his fingernails against the counter. "Not particularly. It just seems to be where my trying thoughts often lead." 

The pout disappeared. "You mean to say you aren't doing it on purpose?"

A shrug. "Of course I do it on purpose sometimes. There is some entertainment in watching certain people squirm. But you are treating us to lunch. The least we can do is try to remain agreeable. I see I've failed." M'ezran gave a small bow, one hand pressed to his chest. "My apologies."

He'd replaced his usual lethargic smile with a pursed, contrite frown. His eyes were closed, and he seemed somehow softer with those predatory, feline pupils locked away. The tilt of his ears reminded her of V'rikshi whenever he felt, necessarily or not, that he needed to apologize.

It was the ears that convinced Ryne he was sincere. Neither of the twins seemed able to control the displays of feeling unique to mystel as of yet.

"If you really didn't mean to, then it's all right. We're not used to each other yet. Misunderstandings are bound to happen," she said.

The eyes slid open, and he smiled with a bit more energy than he usually bothered to muster. "Then let's find a less divisive topic, shall we? Let's see… Certainly not politics. Best to avoid religion..."

M'elia snapped her fingers and said, "Books. You said you'd like to read a book about our lives. Can I take it you read recreationally, then?"

Ryne nodded. "I do. More than ever, lately."

M'elia crossed her arms and legs. "If you would, please dispel the quiet of our wait with some recommendations. Fiction, preferably. I mislike trawling the shelves for decent novels. It is so annoyingly difficult to tell which won't be wasted time."

"I'm not sure you would enjoy what I do," Ryne said.

"Then we can spend the time benevolently judging each other's tastes," M'elia said. "It will be fun. The arts always are, even when they are tragically awful. Especially when they are tragically awful, some might say."

"Are you some, in this case?"

"Very much so."

The minutes before their meal were dominated by a lively but genial debate over the best subgenre of romance novel. Ryne was surprised to find that the twins preferred quieter stories to the passionate adventures she enjoyed. Simple loves, born in passing moments that slowly evolved from few and accidental to many and deliberate, were their pleasure. 

Their food's arrival brought a satisfied silence, interrupted briefly when M'ezran asked to try a bite of her food and doubled over in a coughing fit when the spice hit his tongue. M'elia laughed viciously while the galdjent woman thrust a glass of water at the suffering man. 

When Ryne, twirling a new mouthful of noodles onto her fork, said, "I didn't think it was that spicy," M'elia laughed harder. 

The meal ended in a storm of compliments for the chef. M'elia promised to come again once she'd "acquired the funds." 

As they were walking away, M'elia riposted Ryne's sidelong glance with, "Oh, don't give me that look. Your entire economy is built on coins excavated from old ruins. We are old and ruined, so is there really much of a difference?"

Ryne didn't have a real answer for that yet, and grumbled as much in reply. 

Books filled their return trip. Ryne recommended a few specific titles, to which M'elia whipped a sheaf of scribble-ridden paper and a stick of graphite out of some hidden fold of her coat. She handed them to M'ezran, barking that he should write the recommendations down. After a faltering attempt to balance the sheaf on his arm, M'ezran ended up scratching out the titles by steadying the paper against M'elia's back. 

The conversation faded as the trio reached the Pendants. They paused outside the building, briefly.

A goodbye was on Ryne's tongue when M'elia said, "Before you go, could I get your opinion on something?"

"What is it?" Ryne asked.

"We would like to ask V'rikshi a favor. I was hoping you might have some insight on his likely reply," M'elia said.

Ryne tilted her head in an invitation for the mystel to continue.

"We want to visit the battleground where Elidibus was defeated. He deserves mourning from someone who knew him and remembers it. Do you think V'rikshi would assent to take us up the tower?"

"I could—"

"No, thank you. Not that we don't enjoy your company, but I would like to face Elidibus' end with the man who brought it."

Both mystels' eyes burned into Ryne's. "He didn't have a choice," she said.

"I'm not blaming him," M'elia and M'ezran said in unison.

"I—we—I—just want someone who can answer any questions I might have about my friend's final moments," M'ezran said. His voice was faltering, and more than once M'elia's mouth opened to trace his words before she clamped it determinedly shut.

There was no hostility in his voice. Ryne looked to his ears, drooping low but not pressed to his head. She glanced at his tail, which drifted from side to side.

"I think he'll agree," Ryne said. "If he's reluctant, I'll vouch for you."

The ears lifted a bit. "Very kind of you. I will hope for the best."

Goodbyes were said, subdued by the change in mood but still cordial. 

Ryne knew V'rikshi would say yes. She would keep her word and press him, if necessary. Even if the nature of his feelings for the Ascian was shrouded, their weight was plainly evident. This might make them easier to carry.

The reverse was true as well, but Ryne was in a mood to trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The restaurant owners are wives.


End file.
